Mechanophilia
by Wheatley Laboratories
Summary: While in charge of the facility, Wheatley finds a program that produces some ...interesting effects on its test subject(s). Being written for portalkink, rating will change to M in the future. Pairing is chassis Wheatley/Chell
1. Chapter 1

Mechanophilia

Part 1 - Intro

Lights glared down, blindingly white, from a window high above.

It had been twelve hours. Twelve, and now, the entire complex had adopted the sensation of a police station's interrogation room, or perhaps even a jail cell; where Aperture Science's oddly pristine walls had always given off feelings of imprisonment and everlasting captivity, today, the panel-clad walls barred down in stricter judgement than the test subject had ever seen yet.

It might have had something to do, she noted, with the newest addition to this far-from-streamlined set of test chambers—a great big, black monitor in each one, humming away with power and displaying lines of staticky interference overtop an eerily chipper blue-eyed construct's face.

The test subject—clad in (fittingly enough) a prison-style bright orange jumpsuit, which she'd shed halfway down her waist, and had tied it there—let her eyes pass briefly over the image of the personality core. She scowled. He made her itch, somehow—perhaps it was the way he was looking at her, his observation one hundred and twenty percent more obvious than his predecessor's; or maybe it was his voice that made her skin crawl, what with the way he retained that happy, deceitful tone when he spoke, as if he were casually chatting to her over dinner while she faced the dangers of the tests.

Most likely, though, it was because of his reaction to the test's solutions. Or rather, _test_, as she had only solved one of his, technically speaking—but that had been gross enough. She was admittedly quite confused and disturbed by his reaction, but understood that he was receiving some kind of intense pleasure from her ministrations—she didn't need to know anything more than that. That was enough information for her.

She breathed out slowly as she looked around, taking in the whine of the excursion funnel located in the center of the room, the rosy glow radiating from the button on the ceiling, and the distant chittering of Wheatley Laboratories' most brilliant creation—a half-turret, half-weighted storage cube hybrid monstrosity.

It was easy.

Especially for her—she was quite good at it by now. She had lightning-fast reflexes, sharp, eagle eyes, and a brain that was nearly hardwired for testing. She had no problem keeping Wheatley happy, not when she could solve them point-blank, almost immediately when he kept them relatively simple—which he would, she knew. He was too much of a moron not to.

In no time at all, she'd got the solution. She'd placed the weighted storage cube precisely on top of the checkered patterned square on the floor, and with a soft sound, _fffop_, the portal was placed with an explosion of orange. The funnel whined loudly as the cube drifted up, and Wheatley leaned into the monitor; but Chell was ready this time. Skin already crawling with anticipation, she focused all of her razor-sharp attention on finishing the test and plunged into the oddly muffled safety of the excursion funnel.

But it wasn't enough. "Auuuuughhhhh," he sighed in relief, his voice strained but low and gravelly, making the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end, "Wow. Heh," he chuckled, "Well done, seriously. Why don't you two go on ahead, yeah? I'll just- I'll catch up with you."

Wheatley sounded absolutely exhausted. Pushing aside the unholy feeling his—to quote him directly—_pleasure sounds _had brought out of her, Chell swung the portal gun over her shoulder for safekeeping and strutted, as confidently as she could, out of the test chamber.

"Okay," she heard the potato mounted to the end of her portal gun whisper, "So the bad news is the tests are my tests now. So they can kill us." _Great_, thought Chell sarcastically. "The good news is? Well… none so far, to be honest. I'll get back to you on that."


	2. Chapter 2

Mechanophilia

Part 2 - The Argument

The lift doors hissed shut, leaving Chell and her potato companion to the only bit of peace and quiet allotted during testing. With the potato's last words still echoing in her brain, she slumped against the side of the lift, letting the base of her skull knock gently against the glass. The portal gun was held limp in her right hand, turned precisely so that she could see the potato's golden lens. If GLaDOS had the ability to see what kind of expression was on Chell's face, she did not comment.

_What are we going to do?_ Chell wondered in desperation. Her disgust with Wheatley's reaction to the tests' solutions came only second to her terror of his unpredictability and their absolute predicament. If _GLaDOS _couldn't think up a workable plan, how could _she_? Fair enough, the once-supercomputer-turned-potato-science-project hardly had the ability to utilize more than 1.6 volts of processing power in one go, which was a severe disadvantage to even her own human mind technically speaking, but Chell had the distinct feeling that she was _still _a lot smarter than she was.

"Hey." While the lift echoed with the sucking sound typical for pneumatics, the relative quietness was broken by the potato's voice. "We'll think of something. Or, more importantly, _I'll _think of something. I'm sure of it. Just play along for the time being."

_Great consultation_, thought Chell.

The lift arrived with the usual noise and Chell's metal heelsprings took her weight once more as she walked down the thoroughfare to the test chamber, glassy-eyed. She was going to test until she made a misstep, wasn't she. Or until the reactor core melted down, or until Wheatley decided to kill her... her mind was reeling. She felt tired, overwhelmed, hazy, and sick, but she simply sniffed loudly and marched on. Death may have been a casual misstep away, but escape surely was no more than a testing track away, with just a little luck and tenacity.

"Yeah, made this test myself…" came Wheatley's voice. Before he could even finish, Chell took a leap of faith with the sound of rebounding elastic from the curled heels of her boots and plunged straight into a funnel and turned to face his monitor. "Out of some smaller tests. That I found! Lying around. Got buttons, funnels, bottomless pits are involved… It's got it all, it's got it all, it's absolute dynamite!"

Chell snorted in spite of herself. Really, this moron had _no _idea how to build tests. It was, as he had said, a mashed together, dangerous mess of a test chamber. And, worse still, Wheatley's apparent exhaustion from the test euphoria had not yet left him. It sent another unexplained chill down her spine. Just what was it about his reaction that rubbed her the wrong way, like this? There was something terribly _off _about the entire thing. Her lip curled in disgust as she shook her head, trying to refocus on the test.

It didn't last long, though.

"Did you see that?" asked GLaDOS, as if she were actually expecting a reply from the silent test subject. "He's _exhausted. _It's been so long since I had experienced the—oh. That's right. You know nothing about solution euphoria."

Chell gave the smallest of shrugs and let a puff of air escape through her nostrils, momentarily flaring them. _What the hell is solution euphoria?_

"Well, the body he's squatting in—_my_ body—has a built-in euphoric response to testing," GLaDOS said in a busy sort of voice, as if euphoric reactions were a matter of everyday conversation at Aperture Laboratories. "Eventually, you build up a resistance to it, and it can get a little... unbearable. Unless you have the mental capacity to push past it. It didn't matter to me, I was in it for the science. Him, though…"

GLaDOS didn't need to finish her sentence. The smallest of glances at the moron on his giant screen (_why _did he need to install those again, she wondered) proved that she was correct. Wheatley had no interest whatsoever in test results besides the physical side of things—and oh, was he interested in _that, _whatever _that _was. Euphoric response? Well, that sounded like—

"It's not what you think." The shifty voice she had used caught Chell's attention. It was almost… bordering on out of character, coming from her! "_Seriously_. Well… okay. It's not as _bad _as you think. Maybe. …But anyway, what was I saying? Yes—did you see him? He's tired. His system wasn't designed to handle the kind of—_stimulus_—that I was designed for, and that's good news for us. I think I have an idea. I know a way for us to use this to our advantage."

Chell did not like the tone of voice GLaDOS was using. Not one bit. If potatoes could generate mischievous, self-satisfied grins, she had a feeling that that would be the look on her potato companion's face, and _GLaDOS _fixing _her _with such a look? Well, she wasn't sure if she was in for a treat or if she should drop the gun _and _the potato down the pit as quick as she could!

GLaDOS did not elaborate, however, and left Chell to solve the rest of the test in relative quiet—aside from yet another outburst by Wheatley, where he first complained that she was not solving it quickly enough (which earned him a very scornful look in his direction, to which he did not react, at all) and then proceeded to try to assist her in _cheating_, which was downright insulting and she found herself a little too pleased as the moron all but _screamed _bloody murder in pain.

Then—finally—there was a small snicker of appreciation from GLaDOS. "Oh, this is going to go better than even _I _thought it would," she sighed, her voice oddly whimsical and full of the kind of pleasure that Chell felt sure could only accompany sadistic enjoyment, but the urge to scrap the potato down the pit and save herself vanished at the sound of Wheatley's heavy breathing.

"Never mind," he panted, "Never mind. Solve it yourself. You're on your own."

"Oh, we will," said GLaDOS with another chuckle. "Believe me, we will…"

Chell shook the gun. _What exactly are you talking about?_

She chuckled again before whispering, "All right. Listen to me carefully. Are you listening?" she paused, as if expecting, once again, the test subject's reply. "Because you are not going to believe what I am about to tell you."

There was a beat (at this point, Chell felt sure that GLaDOS was going for dramatic effect) and then the potato spoke. "_Don't solve this test._"

Where Chell had thought GLaDOS was being distinctly overdramatic, she had to admit, she was caught off guard. _Don't solve the test? _Such a thing would never have occurred to her. In principle, it _did _kind of make sense—it could buy them more time, right? But Chell was still confused as to why _GLaDOS _of all people should want to encourage her to quit testing! It seemed against the laws of nature! It was—it was defiance of—defiance of—!

"Science," said GLaDOS in a low, more serious voice, "has nothing to do with the moron's tests. It feels so _wrong_, to _endorse _a refusal to comply, but really—I mean, look around. This place is self-destructing. And him? Well, I'm not going to lie to you. If we're going to beat him, we're going to need to knock him down. We're going to need to make him _suffer. _He'll build a resistance to the euphoric response before long, but that isn't good enough. We need to build up that withdrawal, _now_."

Chell was beginning to see what she was getting at. She chanced a quick glance at the monitor—Wheatley's big, ugly face was still there, still leering as creepily as ever, still twitching in that odd way that made him look as though he were breathing—only, were her eyes playing tricks on her, or did Wheatley seem to be moving faster than he had been before?

He was tense, somehow, more strained, judging by his expression. He looked angry—not as angry as she had seen him in the past, but definitely frustrated, surely very hungry for something that he was _not _receiving.

She looked back down at the potato and gave a minuscule nod. "Good," whispered GLaDOS, satisfaction back full force in her voice. "Glad we're on the same page. Now… don't just sit here and stare at each other until somebody drops dead. You're going to have to make him _need _it. When I said 'don't solve this test', I meant don't _finish _the test. But go ahead and trick him all you'd like. One hundred science points if you get him to shock himself again," she laughed evilly.

Chell cocked a defiant eyebrow as her eyes passed over his screen. He did deserve it. He deserved to be denied what he most wanted. Now that GLaDOS had mentioned it, it seemed like the easiest solution in the entire world—why hadn't _she _thought of it before?

When the moron had first inducted her into his first-ever, comically simple plagiarized testing track, the thing that had irked her most had been the necessity of doing as he said. It had been the only apparent answer, to solve the test, and then to go back and try to solve it again as he liked, in an attempt to activate the pleasure response a second time around—_thank god that hadn't worked, _she mused. Yes, she had felt helpless and betrayed by him, and moreover, powerless—but she was starting to see, now. With minimal effort on her part, she could have him crumbling, helpless, being crushed by protocols.

It was so _simple. _The art of testing could easily be reversed. In a very long time by her standards (which must have felt like infinity to the sphere) she had the cube, she had the funnel, and she had her portals aligned perfectly and her finger on the trigger. One twitch and he'd have what he wanted, and he knew it, too. He leaned in, hungry, twitching worse than ever, and still somehow radiating the oddly endearing innocence that probably had something to do with the exact, soft baby blue of his iris.

The cube chittered beneath the button as Chell turned her back to it. She strode a few steps forward and began to finger the pedestal button in front of her, tracing the grimy cracks in its faded red surface. In that moment, there was silence aside from the rumble of the deconstructing facility while the testing protocols held Wheatley's tongue. He could do nothing but watch, and twitch, and wait.

_One small step for a test subject… _Chell breathed in and, with a wicked smile, pressed the button. _One giant leap for science._

There was the resultant peal, and then the following fizzle of the cube vaporizing.

"_Hey_!" GLaDOS held in another laugh at Wheatley's distraught voice. "What did you do that, for?"

"Whatever do you mean?" replied GLaDOS in a poisonously sweet voice.

"You know exactly what I mean! You'd almost had it, there, you know you did!"

"Had what?"

"The bloody thing _solved_!"

"Oh, did we? I'm sorry, that was my fault. I didn't think that could possibly be the answer. It was too simple. So I told her to fizzle it and start over."

Wheatley let out a long, angry groan. "That's _cheating_," he complained.

"Don't flatter yourself," GLaDOS retorted, sounding offended. "No one in their right mind would have to cheat on this test. I merely remarked to her that I thought that this was far too comically simple to be the solution—a mistake on my part," she chuckled evilly, unable to resist the opportunity to make yet another jab at Wheatley's abysmal IQ, "As I had momentarily forgotten who it was who built this test."

"That was me!" called out Wheatley immediately, "I—_hey_! Wait a second!"

Even Chell gave a soft chuckle at the look on the moron's face. His eye shutters were narrowed and his pupil had contracted to a pinprick, giving him the most ridiculous, angry expression she'd ever seen in her life.

"Yes, I know it was," said GLaDOS finally. "That was kind of the point, because you are a—"

"Don't!" Wheatley whined in protest.

"Moron!"

"Auuuuuuugh!" he cried, flaring his side plates in exasperation. "I _told _you not to do that! I told you not to! I'm tired of this, and guess what! _I'm _the boss here, and I'm not listening to you until you _solve this bloody test_!"

"What a relief," said GLaDOS, "Because you're going to be silent for a long time, if that's the case."

Wheatley leaned into the screen, filling the entire thing up with his cyan iris. The effect was somewhat startling, Chell personally felt, and she took a step or two backward in spite of herself. It looked like he was about to try and climb through the monitor itself!

"_Really_?" yelled Wheatley, angry and distraught. "So after that, after all of that, you admit that you _don't _know how to solve my absolutely _difficult _test! You were _lying_! I knew it!"

"Oh, please. The only person here not likely to already know the answer is _you_."

Wheatley blinked rapidly before his eye shutters descended into another glare. "Not likely," he growled, his pupil shifting between the test subject and the potato. "I built this thing, I know the answer. Of course I bloody well do!"

"Prove it."

"Oh, come on! All you've got to do is put the cube on the buttaaa_aaeeerrrrhhghhhhhhhhh_!"

"Heh heh heh," chuckled GLaDOS, and Chell felt an inward twinge of amusement. "We don't care," she said dangerously over the sound of Wheatley's hoarse panting. "I already told you—we're not going to solve it anyways."

Chell took that as her cue and sat down, cross-legged, beneath the big red glowing button on the ceiling. She folded her arms across her chest and sniffed loudly. What she could see of Wheatley's casing from her position on the floor twitched violently in agitation and he stammered, sounding almost painfully distraught.

"But- but you _have _to solve it!" he gasped. She could _almost _pity him. "You _have _to! Otherwise you can't move ahead to the next one!"

"Look, moron," GLaDOS chimed in. Wheatley, surprisingly, did not react to the insult. "We _don't. _Don't you see? We don't have to do anything you want us to do. We don't _want _to move on to the next one. We want to get _out, _and put me back in my body, so I can stop the facility from exploding."

"No!" he cried. "I won't let you!"

"What other choice have you got? That itch isn't going to go away. In fact, it's only going to get worse the longer you wait."

"I don't care!" Chell bit her lip at the mounting desperation in his voice. "I don't care, I'll- I'll _make _you solve it! I'll bring in turrets! I'll fill that test with neurotoxin if you don't! Ha! What then, eh?"

GLaDOS's reply was a sigh of outright exasperation. "Then we'd be _dead_, you idiot. And then you'd have _no one _to solve your precious tests."

There was a very long silence.

"I—uh," said Wheatley finally, his voice gone quiet, "Did not think of that."

"Of course you didn't."

"You know what?" he shouted, anger and frustration back in full force, "I'll be right back. Okay? Don't move. Don't touch anything. _I'm _going to find a way to fix this, if it's the last thing I do. And when I come back—oooh, you'll be sorry! You'll wish you had solved this test straightaway, _luv_!"

There was a following chuckle from GLaDOS as her volume dimmed to a quiet whisper. "This is working better than I had expected," she said. "That little idiot doesn't know what he's gotten into. There's no way for him to get what he wants, unless he wants to let us out, of course."

Chell, however, was barely listening to what the potato had to say. Her eyes were locked onto the now-empty test chamber monitor, unease pulling at the back of her throat and making the hairs on the back of her neck stand upright. There had been something about the stare he'd fixed her with just before he'd left that she didn't like, not one bit. GLaDOS may have felt fully confident, but somehow, she could not shake the feeling that she had finally pushed him a little too far. He was already powermad, suffering some kind of apparent withdrawal, and bordering deranged—and to top it off, he really was amazingly stupid, sometimes. It all had the potential to quickly become disastrous, she was sure, if they weren't careful—add in the fact that the reactor core was overheating and even as she sat, clouds of dust and broken ceiling panels were raining down into the pit, and she felt sure that things were going to get a heck of a lot worse before they got better.

"Might as well take a break." GLaDOS's voice cut through her thoughts, sounding a little less reassured than she had a few minutes ago. Perhaps she, too, was having last minute reservations about the plan. Regardless, Chell's grip on the portal gun tightened—there was no going back now. Whatever would happen next, she'd be ready. She'd face it like she'd faced everything else thus far—with a locked jaw and teeth barred with determination. She could take whatever that moron was about to dish out.

_Bring it on._


	3. Chapter 3

Mechanophilia

Part 3 - The Installation

Wheatley could not keep still.

He was mad. He was so, so angry at the two women down in the test chamber. They'd deliberately drawn it out, made him sit up all expectantly waiting as if they were actually going to do it, and then they did _not _do it. They did nothing. They left him suffering from the foul, stinking promise of no release and the itch that went hand-in-hand with it while they were having a laugh, probably. At his bloody expense.

It was _uncalled _for! It was absolutely, tremendously disrespectful. And, if he were honest with himself, he was one hundred percent _tired _of being disrespected. He was angry, uncomfortable, itching his bloody _brains _out and now, the two women below had just _decided _not to solve his test, as if it were actually a bloody option.

Which it was _not_, for the record.

_Not _an option. He was fuming as he searched the files, muttering to himself bitterly. There were hundreds—bloody _hundreds—_of files to go through. Surely there had to be something on the itch and how to relieve it! Sure, _She _thought she'd got him trapped in quite the predicament, but Wheatley knew better. He knew that _She _had to have had some kind of way of dealing with the itch—there was no _way _she could concentrate through this feeling!

And what a feeling it was. At its best it was a light, crawling tickle, almost pleasant enough to feel nice. It was kind of reminiscent of the time he'd been attacked by the bird, although in that situation he'd been quite afraid—it was light and fluttery like feathery wings, if the feathers had been a lot softer and had been tickling about just under the joints where his handles had attached to his core body. But that pleasant, tickly sensation was short-lived as the programming had set up properly, beginning to fire compulsions at him that sent him into slight shivers as he had got used to the newfound sensation of being _touched_.

Because that's what it was like, during the times it was _there _but wasn't firing with ruthless determination. It was like having a finger trailing along the spine of his new body, resulting in further creeping, crawling sensations and more shivers—and a growing heat in his systems. It left him almost wanting more, as if the stimulation just wasn't enough.

When it did strengthen, it was when he had been made to wait for an end he could not yet fathom, for so long he could hardly _think. _At that point, everything had been driven right to the point of bloody _aching, _he'd felt tense and expectant and tight and hot, as though he'd found himself stuck somewhere very hot and many sizes too small for him. He felt almost claustrophobic, and panicky, and the thought of it never ending had driven him absolutely _frantic._

It had affected his senses, too. Watching the testing somehow held his attention far better than anything else ever had. He'd never been one to sit still, admittedly, but protocols held him in place, fed him false patience that was definitely not his own—here and there, his own desperation for relief would overwhelm the protocols and he'd find himself shouting without meaning to, arching and shuddering in frustration.

Oh, but the pleasure—man _alive_, the pleasure!—made it all _entirely _worth the wait. It felt so good. It was stronger, deeper than any kind of pleasure he'd ever felt before, an instant explosion that drove straight through him to what felt like the most vital subprocesses he possessed, wiping his brain instantly blank in wake of the rush, filling him up. He had _no _control when that happened and he relinquished it willingly, fully losing almost every layer of consciousness in the pure, instant _yes, ohhh, yeees! _of it.

He needed it. The memory of it sent yet another crawling wave of the itch poking through him as he delved deeper into the mainframe, occasionally glancing at the monitor where he could still see the test subject sitting, looking rather bored, just beneath the button. Anger surged along the same pathways as the itch, feeding on it in the most intoxicating way he'd ever experienced. He did his best to stay positive, though. He _was _going to get another burst of it, whether the two women liked it or not.

And so, Wheatley searched. Searching for files about the itch did not work, but eventually he found a solution to that problem—apparently the bloody thing was actually called a test compulsion protocol—and had it at last.

Most of the information was useless to him. Corrupted, with chunks missing or omitted entirely, the only seemingly useful thing he managed to find was something clearly marked 'WARNING—DO NOT INITIATE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE. Test Compulsion Protocol Compliance'. So naturally, he opened it as quickly as he could and initiated the process.

Immediately, he wished he hadn't—another curious sensation came over him, starting from the top portions of the cables that connected him to the rest of the facility, slowly creeping down through the joint at his middle and into the very edges of his core. It was like the itch, but different; it was a paralyzing feeling, and immediately he yelped, frightened. He couldn't _move_!

GREETINGS!

He wasn't quite sure if the message had been transmitted through text or audio. All he knew was that simultaneously, the letters appeared in his head while a voice—vaguely reminiscent of the announcer's—narrated.

AND WELCOME TO THE APERTURE SCIENCE TEST COMPULSION COMPLIANCE INITIATIVE. IN THE EVENT OF NON-COMPLIANCE WITH STANDARD TESTING PROTOCOL, THE TEST COMPULSION COMPLIANCE INITIATIVE WILL ENSURE THAT SCIENCE CAN STILL BE DONE, REGARDLESS OF ANY OUTSTANDING NON-COMPLIANCE RELATED ISSUES. CENTRAL CORE, PLEASE CONSULT THE MANUAL BEFORE WE BEGIN. AT ANY MOMENT SHOULD YOU WISH TO REVIEW THE MANUAL, A COURTEOUSY COPY HAS BEEN DOWNLOADED TO DRIVER "A" FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE. THE APERTURE SCIENCE TEST COMPULSION COMPLIANCE INITIATIVE THANKS YOU AND WISHES YOU THE BEST OF LUCK!

[WARNING—A HARDWARE UPDATE IS REQUIRED TO INSTALL . WOULD YOU LIKE TO INSTALL THIS HARDWARE?]

The final message remained, awaiting his answer. He chuckled lowly. He was utterly pleased with himself—he'd done it, he'd found the solution he was looking for, even despite _Her _reassurance that it was impossible—and happily accepted the procedure without even stopping to properly think about what it was he'd just read.

As soon as he'd done so, he tried to do a double-take. _Hardware update? _What in the name of bloody Science—

[WAITING FOR DRIVER INSTALLATION…]

It was too late. He still found his body to be frozen, which sent a flash of paralyzing fear through his system. He tried to struggle, but the program had overridden his motor control subroutines, and in panic he made a sharp swallowing noise as yet more words invaded his brain:

[DRIVER WAS INSTALLED SUCCESSFULLY. BEGINNING HARDWARE INSTALLATION…]

And then, from below him there was a burst of red light. Panic mounted as he recognized the pit—had he unintentionally activated some kind of core transfer?—and out came the maintenance arms. The apparatus connecting him to the ceiling descended, lowering him unwillingly into it, and Wheatley closed his eye, a string of words that never made it to his speakers tumbling through his mind, _please don't hurt, please don't hurt, pleasedon'thurt—_

The arms went inside of him, inside of the hole at the front of him, he felt them shove something inside and the resounding _clunk _it made with the back of the hollow space beneath his chest plate. He tried to squirm away, but it was useless, and a second later every sense was overwhelmed with the one thing he had been most keen to avoid—complete, agonizing pain.

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH!"

He wasn't sure how long it had lasted for. It felt like bloody eternity, but eventually it did fade, leaving him dizzy with a throbbing, foreign ache settled somewhere around the center of his chest plate for company. He panted and groaned, and slowly opened his eye—and realized with a start that he could move again.

[DRIVER WAS INSTALLED SUCCESSFULLY. CALIBRATING…]

_Well that's great, _he thought sarcastically, rocking himself back and forth to try to throw off the uncomfortable ache the roughness of the maintenance arms had left over his casing.

[CALIBRATION COMPLETE. ALL FACTORY SETTINGS WERE SUCCESSFULLY DOWNLOADED. BEFORE YOU BEGIN, PLEASE CONSULT MANUAL FOR THE PROPER USE OF THIS HARDWARE.]

He was still blinking sluggishly by the time he caught sight of the woman and her potato still waiting patiently inside of the test chamber. _Please consult the manual… _well, if there was one thing he could do well, it was multitask. Read _and _observe Science? Not a problem for him. There was just one thing, though—he wasn't exactly sure how this new _program _was about to help the test subject get on with science. In fact… he glanced around rapidly, craning to see the apparent 'new hardware' that had been installed on him. He didn't _see _anything different about himself at all!

Wheatley made a shrugging motion with his chassis. He'd find out soon enough, he supposed. For now—it was about time the woman solved this bloody test chamber!

But as the word and the notion of the results the task promised entered his mind, Wheatley suddenly became aware of something very, very strange…


	4. Chapter 4

Mechanophilia

Part 4 - The Solution

((Author's Note: We're getting into some somewhat suggestive stuff, here, toward the end of this part. I'm not going to increase the rating until the next part, however, when the actual M-rated stuff begins to happen. UPDATE: I have no idea why this site hates me so much. As far as I know this ch never loaded properly and seemed to have vanished for whatever godforsaken reason and never found its way out of the internet to where it belongs so I'm gonna try reposting it. There WAS some kind of problem that I have never experienced before, I don't know what the heck is this site's problem. LET'S TRY IT AGAIN, SHALL WE? Eugh...)).

"_What was that_?"

The scream had caught both of them off guard. Where Chell had been resting with her back against the chamber wall, she suddenly sat bolt upright. Her eyes locked onto the big, black form of the empty monitor, but only the cascading lines of static interference winked back at her. As still and silent as a fox, her eyes narrowed. There were the following sounds of panting and a sharp gasp.

"What is he _doing_?"

Chell let her shoulders fall in a nearly imperceptible shrug. _No idea… _whatever the little idiot was up to, she would certainly have to wait to find out.

GLaDOS remained silent, undoubtedly just as still and tense as Chell herself was. They waited, and waited, and finally… there was some loud rustling, and then was speaking, although the monitor remained just as black and empty as it had been for the last thirty or so minutes.

"What _is _that," came the sound of his voice.

GLaDOS couldn't hold back a sharp scoff. "Really," she chided him, "How are we supposed to know? You have neglected to restore visual input to that monitor."

"That's—I, uh, _well,_" he murmured, sounding very confused. "I didn't plan for this, that's… interesting. To say the least. Is that _really _ stuck on, there…? What the—? I mean, it _looks _like some kind of... of _adapter, _if I'm honest, I don't really understand…"

"What are you _talking _about?"

"Oh!" said Wheatley, and his voice instantly lost the confused, quiet quality, which was replaced with a shiftiness that got Chell's attention at once. "'Ello! Didn't- didn't see you there. Almost forgot about you. My fault, sorry, my fault. Uhh… can you just hold on, for a moment, actually? If you don't mind."

He sounded weird—it was like they had caught him doing something rebellious or wrong. It was vaguely reminiscent of the way he'd always ask her to turn away from him while he 'hacked'. Whatever it was, though, was a mystery to both her and GLaDOS. And as long as that screen stayed off, she could not continue toying with him… nor would she find out what he was up to.

"Now, let's see here," he narrated an unseen task. "Instruction Manual, page one, index. Right. Chapter Onnneeee… oh. Oh, that's… …ohwow."

"You have _got _to be kidding me," whispered GLaDOS to her before she sighed. "Well… I guess it is for the better. It's about time he tried to maintain the reactor core. At least we're not going to explode, then. Probably."

Chell nodded solemnly in agreement.

"Okay, change of plan," Wheatley's voice suddenly boomed through the chamber and the monitor feed switched on to reveal his—ominously eager—face. "We're going to do things _my _way, now. See this test, here? This regrettably unsolved test? Yeah. You're going to solve that. You're going to solve it riiiiight… _now_."

Chell stared. Wheatley blinked and frowned. "Oh, come _on_! Auuughh, not your fault, not your fault. Perhaps it will just take a little longer than expected. Yes."

Chell crooked an eyebrow, but before she had the time to properly wonder what the hell he meant, GLaDOS was whispering again. "What is that…" she started, sounding equally offended and amused. Chell looked down at the golden-eyed potato before looking back up at Wheatley—where she thought GLaDOS's relatively tiny peripherals must have been aimed.

_What IS that? _was also the first thought to enter her brain.

Wheatley had settled back into default position on the screen, and was staring, rapt with attention. Hardly a glance showed her exactly what the potato was gaping at—a bright pink something had appeared beneath him, covering the bulk of the white plate located at the base of his core.

"Hey, moron," called out GLaDOS, her voice still full of barely-hidden amusement, "That's _mine_."

"Finders keepers," Wheatley glared. "So it's mine, now."

"I have no idea why you would want that. It's really quite ridiculous. In fact, it is _so _ridiculous that I am not about to waste any extra voltage trying to understand why you've put that on. I will say, though—I don't know how that is going to help us want to solve the test. Unless you've actually managed to fix the reactor core in your absence, which I doubt."

Right on cue, the announcer's voice echoed through the chamber. "Warning. Reactor core—"

There was a burst of static as Wheatley cut the line. "No! No!" he said, positively dancing in the monitor. "I took care of that myself. It's all fine. Now move along with the test, will you?"

"I thought so."

Chell's shoulders shook with a single huff of laughter. Then, she straightened, and locked her hand further into the back of the portal gun. There was no sense sitting around while Wheatley refused to crack. She knew well enough that there were many ways of making a test _appear _to be solved without _actually _solving it.

With a resigned sigh, Chell repositioned the tractor beam, approached the pedestal button, and pushed it. The cube dropped into the funnel with the usual peal, and Chell re-aimed the gun, preparing to redirect the cube toward her.

But movement to her left caught her eye and she looked over to see Wheatley in his new, lurid-pink whatever it was, readjusting the camera angle. A slight crease formed between her eyebrows as she stared at him, wondering what the hell he'd done to himself and why—it looked like some kind of- of _apron_, or something. It was hard to tell, because the monitor was quite far away from the platform she was standing on, and Wheatley just wouldn't keep still.

"Oo, brilliant." His voice had taken on a bit of a throaty quality, and reluctantly she was reminded of the solution euphoria he was promised at the—unlikely—conclusion of the test. "Brilliant, yes, go on, now…"

His huge form was leaning into the screen, not so far as to obscure everything aside from his vibrant iris, but enough that she could see him straining. It also brought a little more of the stupid, pink apron into view, and she had to hold back a snort of laughter. _What an idiot, _she thought to herself. An _apron, _honestly. And GLaDOS had said it had been _hers_! Although, that bit did make sense. So delicious and moist…

But why was _Wheatley _wearing it?

With a subtle shake of the head, Chell collected the cube and looked up at the cube above her head.

"Come on…"

A shiver chased itself up her spine. Why did he have to _do _that? It was bad enough that he had chosen to display himself like that on the big screens, but why couldn't he just be quiet? Chell may not have had any human interaction in what was probably centuries, but even she could figure out what that rather husky tone of voice Wheatley was using meant.

"Come on…!"

"You're not going to _actually _do it, are you?" asked GLaDOS, sounding stern. Chell shook her head. "Good. I thought you'd let me down there, for a second."

Her eyes flicked back to the image of the sphere displayed on the screen. She didn't mean to stare—the mere fact that this was what he seemed to be going for made her reluctant to look at him at all, but she was standing beneath the button with the cube in hand and god damn it she couldn't _help _it.

She was under a lot of pressure. The facility was deconstructing; GLaDOS was fully expecting their plan to work, which thus far it had not; she was literally right at the end of this test, standing with the solution basically in her hand; and Wheatley was watching, staring, and twitching, and very obviously crazy to get her to solve it.

And, moreover, she was beginning to find that she kind of _liked _that.

"Errrughhh," the sphere groaned, and instantly her eyes flicked back to his screen where his optic was rolling in its socket, "What do I have to do to get you to do this for me? I'm not asking a lot, here, all I'm asking for is for you to solve a simple test! It's not hard, is it, and you're standing there like you have _no idea _what to do next, when we _both _know you know the answer, luv! Now _solve it_!"

He'd filled the screen with his eye at the last second before backing away, and that was when she noticed that he looked odd. Beforehand, whenever she'd looked at him it had been with fatefully downcast eyes and small glances—she'd never stared or had a really good look at him. But now that she thought about it, it didn't seem right not to look him straight in the eye—she was defying _him, _here! And he should damn well _know _it!

Momentarily, though, she was distracted by something else. This was _weird_. At first, she'd wondered why on earth he was wearing the apron—but now, unless her eyes were playing tricks on her, she could quite plainly see that there was something in behind the apron that he was using the apron to hide.

It did not seem to be a direct part of his chassis; otherwise there would have been no point in wearing the thing, after all. Nor did he seem to be directly affected by it, though now that Chell had noticed it, she couldn't understand why she hadn't seen it before—it was pulling at the fabric at his front quite a lot, which didn't make sense, either—why had he tied the cloth so tight, then?—but then again, nothing the moron did made any sense.

He must have caught her looking at it, however, for a second later he ducked his optic down halfway into his casings so that she couldn't even see the bottom half of it. It must have worked for him, though, because a second later he looked back up at her, eye cocked and grinning, and said, "Wow. Look at that, eh! Even I didn't think it would get this big!"

Chell felt herself flush, although she was not sure why. "What?" said GLaDOS in confusion, and then, "…Oh. …Is that—?"

The potato had spoken uncharacteristically slowly, in a voice that made the hairs on the back of Chell's neck stand on end.

"Is that what, exactly?" replied Wheatley, dropping his optic shutters into a glare. "S'not for you, that's what it is. It's none of your business, actually."

"That is _MY _body, moron! If it's no one's business, it's none of _yours_!"

Taken aback by how angry she suddenly sounded, Chell accidentally disengaged the portal device's energy manipulator. The cube dropped to the ground with a very solid _thunk._

"It is so!" yelled Wheatley, just as angry.

"It is _NOT_! And if you've done what I _think _you've done to it…"

"I didn't do anything to it!"

"Don't lie to me! You've done something! What did you _do_!"

"Nothing!"

Chell was staring back and forth between the two, unsure of what to make of the sudden change of events. She felt out of the loop; clearly she was the only one present with _no clue _as to what was going on.

"Moron," said GLaDOS in her most dangerously quiet voice, "You do realize that not everything in that system is mine, right? There are some—very delicate programs—that should be run with caution. And some that should never be run at all. Under _any _circumstance."

"Like what?" asked Wheatley, trying to sound nonchalant.

"I think you know which ones."

"Nooooo. No I don't. But… uh, not saying I _did_, but I if I _were _to, hypothetically speaking only, of course, install, um, a certain program, that said- uhhh, what did that say again? What's that say? Oh—'_do not initiate under any circumstance_', what would happen if I did that, then? Just went ahead and installed it anyway? Because it sounds helpful, if I'm honest."

"Oh, you _idiot_," she groaned. "You know, for a little idiot built to make stupid mistakes, I'd have thought you'd found it in you to maybe _once _not do the worst decision possible, but I was wrong. That's it. We're all going to _die_, and that is _not _sarcasm. That is solid, believable _fact._"

Chell swallowed hard—maybe it was her imagination, but she rather felt like the potato's golden-yellow optic was suddenly looking in her direction. Was GLaDOS _seriously _blaming her for this?

_It's not my fault! _she wanted to say. Really, how could she have foreseen this? It wasn't like she _told _Wheatley to open that program—whatever it was? And now, they were all going to die? Seriously? How could she be sure of that?

Wheatley was silent for a second. "No, we won't," he said finally. "We won't, because I've got an idea. I think I know how to fix this place. And according to this log—this itch is going to be taken care of in about three minutes."

"How do you know that?" challenged GLaDOS. "And oh, great. Just what I wanted to hear from you. Another _idea. _Well, at least we won't have to wait too long, then. Let's see… any last reservations before you die? Anything you have to say? Any apologies you want to make?"

The potato had, once again, been looking at her. Chell shifted awkwardly on the spot and kept silent, fully aware of what she'd meant with the last part. No, she was not about to apologize to her. Maybe only when—and _if_—they got out of here alive.

"No? Can't say I'm surprised. My turn. Let's see, here… oh. No. I was going to say that I'd wished I'd got more science done, but in reality I've had a pretty good life. Though I could have died without having been turned into a potato. That's really unfortunate. I could have gone without being murdered, too."

Chell rolled her eyes.

"You know what?" the potato's voice dropped to a whisper, and she did not like the bitter hopelessness GLaDOS was having trouble keeping out, not one bit. "He did say we've got three minutes left. I know things look bleak, but there's still a chanced he's botched the software installation process. Maybe it won't work. Maybe we can find a way out. Solve this test for him—give him what he wants. It can't hurt us, after all… and if he _has _installed it correctly, solving his tests is going to be the least of our worries."

Chell frowned and nodded sadly. She still didn't fully understand what the potato was talking about, but GLaDOS was rarely so pessimistic unless the situation actually called for it—and further, she had sounded _afraid. _GLaDOS was _never _afraid. Yet another tingle raced down Chell's spine. What had Wheatley _done_?

The energy manipulator sucked the cube into its field with a twitch of her finger and Chell turned and let it hover within the translucent blue beam. She had sounded so hopeless. She turned to Wheatley, barely registering the sound of his voice as he began to babble in anticipation—that was, until she felt something strong and invisible tug at her in a way she'd never quite experienced before.

It was not a physical tug. Something had pulled at her very being, the intertwined strands that made up her willpower, and all of her senses felt momentarily sharpened before it receded, leaving only a piqued interest and further desire to solve the test. It was just a trigger fire away—Wheatley, too, was aware of this, rolling his eye, squirming, his body arching to fill the screen and the last thing she saw before she pulled the trigger was that strained, mysterious bit of fabric at the front of him, and she'd had half a second in which her brain was full of curiosity and wonder and this very strange _hopefulness_—and then the cube had the button pressed down fully, the test completed and Wheatley made a very, very distracting moaning noise and the front of him where she'd been looking, that straining taught fabric was suddenly _soaked _right at the tip and the spot turned a deeper shade of pink, which spread as the fabric quickly absorbed whatever moisture was seeping out of him at the same rate as the very …_relieved _moan was.

Well.

"Oh, well done," said Wheatley, with an expression that clearly read satisfaction, and a few nods. "Well _done. _See, luv? Not too difficult. Not too _hard_. For you, at least. Heh, heh…" his optic lowered to look down at his front again as he chuckled. "See you in the next chamber, then."

She almost swore he'd winked at her.

"Okay," said GLaDOS in the most resigned voice she'd ever heard come out of the potato as Chell made her way out the exit and into the lift. "Let's get this over with."

The doors hissed shut and the lift departed. She swallowed hard and nodded, trying to remain as deadpan as usual. Deep down, though, something inside of her had shifted at her very core—she felt much, much too happy at the prospect of solving yet another test. _Especially _if he was going to make a noise like that and leak all over the place when she'd solved it.

It was foreign and illogical and it felt so entirely _wrong, _but it felt like some part of her had been awakened when she'd solved the last one. And now it called to her, and she couldn't help it, she needed to solve the next…

And the next…

And maybe another few more after that…

_Let the games …begin._


	5. Chapter 5

Mechanophilia

Part 5 - Intro #2

GLaDOS's worries had not let up by the time they had ascended the stairs into the next room. Nor had the core feelings Chell had begun to experience in the last test; the sound of Wheatley's voice greeting her with paramount enthusiasm sent her inside winding into what felt like a tight, twisting coil. It was a feeling she could not yet place, but she did know that it aided focus of a different kind—she was preoccupied with _him_, for some ungodly reason.

Maybe it wasn't that unprecedented. Maybe it was understandable. Maybe it had everything to do with innocent curiosity because she still wasn't sure _what _she'd seen in that last chamber.

Something deep down told her that that wasn't it, though.

"Coming, coming!" he'd practically shouted. "I'm coming, don't start yet, don't start yet!"

She could almost imagine him up there in his lair, fiddling with unseen controls in an attempt to get the test chamber fully online before she entered. She _almost _hoped that everything had gone back to normal, somehow—that she wasn't about to be greeted with the sight of him in that idiotic pink apron, which (she tried very hard not to remember this part, because it heightened the feeling of gnawing anticipation in her stomach) was probably still damp from whatever it was that had oozed from the—whatever _that _was underneath—that he'd somehow got stuck to his front.

Which happened to (unfortunately) be the first thing she saw when she entered the chamber. At least this time, whatever apparatus was beneath the cloth was hidden and _not _straining at the still-damp fabric.

"You're not going to believe this," he said, positively bouncing with excitement on the screen, "I've found hundreds—_hundreds_—of perfectly good test chambers, just sitting here! Filled with skeletons, shook them out, good as new!"

The potato's reply was lost beneath an intense rumble as Wheatley mashed two test chambers together. Chell staggered, nearly losing her footing, only supported by the long fall boots as ceiling tiles rained down from the collision.

"Aaaaand, there we go!" he said, as though nothing had happened. "Be honest, you can't even tell, can you? Seamless."

He left them to it.

Chell couldn't concentrate. That feeling was back in full force, turning her normally smooth movements jerky and semi un-coordinated. She could hardly even think up the solution to this test, as simple in concept as it probably was. Executing it was going to be a challenge, though, she knew.

"Are you okay?" asked GLaDOS, and Chell allowed her eyes to flick down to the potato for the smallest moment. Her tone of voice was funny, it was almost as if she knew exactly how Chell was feeling. "Listen," she continued very seriously, "No matter what happens… I am still going to try to find a way to get us out of here, but I can't do that unless you help me."

Chell cocked an eyebrow at her. Why wouldn't she try to help her? She wanted to get out of here, too!

"That sounds strange," she admitted tenuously. "But the moron's done something, and I wasn't kidding. We are all probably about to die." There was a pause, in which Chell continued to stare down at the potato. "I did say probably, though. There is a small chance you'll be fine. Even I don't know how this new program the moron has initiated is going to affect you… but, unless you can push past the sensation, I think we're in big trouble."

Sensation? Was GLaDOS referring to the mounting feelings of distraction she was experiencing?

"I know things look bleak," she said finally, "But you have to try. If you can get me somewhere where I can access the system, I think I can find us a way out. For now, though, you'd better continue with the test."

She sounded worried. And with a pang, she understood. She was worried, too.


	6. Chapter 6

Mechanophilia

Part 6 - The Itch

It was all fine—mostly—until she'd returned to the anterior end of the chamber with the cube.

She was feeling quite hot. Beads of sweat were shining on her forehead and she was uncomfortably aware of how sticky and muggy her clothes felt. Sure, they had been designed for maximum comfort and ventilation and she could not recall ever having an issue with them beforehand, but suddenly she could hardly stand the feeling of the fabric against her skin. She almost felt more receptive, somehow—the heightened sensations seemed to be caused by this nearly imperceptible trickle running down her spine in waves, spreading from her brain to her chest and belly and finally, down into her groin.

The odd feeling peaked when she looked up at Wheatley. There he was, staring just as intensely as ever. Though he did not appear to be as strained or angry as he had been in the last chamber, Chell could definitely see edginess in the way he was moving. At the eye contact, Wheatley's optic rolled.

"Ooh, you brilliant girl." He hadn't said it loud, but she'd distinctly heard it, she was sure of it. He rocked forward a little, and Chell was instantly reminded of the pink apron and the piece on his front—once again visible—which seemed to be enlarging as she looked, lengthening somehow, pulling at the still-damp fabric, vaguely reminiscent of—

Chell leapt backward in surprise, her heartbeat beginning to pound inside of her chest. Now that she realized, the shape of the thing, the positioning, everything, either she really was going crazy or Wheatley had somehow gotten himself what was quite plainly a—

"Oh, I was wondering how that hardware would function," said GLaDOS loudly and sarcastically. "Not that I would ever have acquired that even ifI had been an idiot enough to initiate it. I'm not sure how exactly it would have worked for me, though I don't intend to find out. I don't feel the need to degrade myself to that level. You, though? Well, you were already a gross little sphere. Adding synthetic human reproduction organs to you is actually a pretty good metaphor for your entire existence."

"Oh, _what_?" whined Wheatley in shock. "What d'you mean by that?"

Chell would have been amused but instead she just felt suddenly fascinated. So it really was as she'd thought. This explained everything. It fit a little too much, perhaps, she thought as she remembered the, er, 'reactions' Wheatley had been having to the test solving even _before _he'd returned with this new… apparatus. GLaDOS had said she'd been in it for the science, but him… well.

"Exactly what it sounds like, moron. In layman's terms, I mean that that thing is probably bigger than your brain is."

His optic darted down to his front again. "Well that's not nice, is it," he said as he straightened and refocused on Chell. "Though, if I'm honest, it's probably correct."

His voice had dropped a few octaves as he said this, looking at her with a heavy top shutter. The combination made her hips twitch involuntarily, and she stared down at herself immediately, nonplussed. That had never happened before. What was going _on _with her?

Mounting anger instantly melted away as he continued. "Yeah, pretty massive," he positively drawled, sounding laid-back. "Pretty enormous." He shifted on the monitor, leaning away, and Chell felt her mouth go instantly dry as the entire screen filled with pink—god, she couldn't help it any longer, she was staring with her mouth half-open in shock and fascination at the sight of the 'hardware' underneath, which seemed to grow before her very eyes. _Oh, god… _"Not tiny little Wheatley anymore, eh, luv?"

He lowered himself back into the default position on the screen, eye shutters narrowed into what was quite plainly a smug grin. "Heh heh heh," he chuckled. "Who's the one with all the power now, hmmm? Who's got you trapped in here until they're done with you?"

Chell's teeth were clenched so hard they felt as though they were about to break. It had never, ever got to her like this, his voice, his movements—he was talking so quietly, so _smoothly, _and her throat was so stuck that it was hard to breathe, and even if she had wanted to say something, she didn't think she could have made her voice work anyhow.

"Cat's got your tongue, luv. Tell you what. Let's step it up a notch." There was a series of rapid beeps. "There. That should do it. How about that, eh? That's me, controlling that nice little vapor that's going to make you break down and _beg _for me to want you and help you and forgive you, like you should have been, all along. 'said I shouldn't turn it up so high, but you deserve that, don't you? You deserve what you're going to get, luv. And, for the record…" he seemed to stretch again and Chell's eyes followed him, her irises fully dilated. "I don't help smelly humans who don't help _me_."

She'd _never _felt like this before. It was an intoxicating heat and she felt _glued _to him, helpless, completely at his mercy. He was bringing her to her knees, just with the look on his face. It was undeniable attraction, swelling, consuming her—she'd never even thought of him as attractive before but holy hell she could not keep her _eyes _off of him. Something had slid into place in her brain and, even though Chell had largely remained passive when it came to men for the majority of her life before Aperture, she found herself locked in completely. And that piece on his front, and what it could mean, what it _did _mean—oh, she wanted to _see _it. She wanted to see it at the very _least, _pull that stupid apron off of him, slowly reveal what was underneath—maybe even run her hands along the white, smooth plate underneath… it looked so, so smooth…

Her senses had sharpened to the point of aching. Or maybe they only ached because the lack of stimulation was beginning to take its toll on her. Keeping still was becoming unbearable, and before she knew what she was doing she was sinking to her knees and removing the gun, palming at the part of her that felt the most urgent and tight and hot.

"And also, luv…" Wheatley positively purred at the sight of her finally submissive on the floor. His eye was shining brightly, and he'd leaned forward, staring fondly down at her, proud. "I'm not even _close_ to finished with you. Like I said. I found _hundreds _of test chambers back here. _Hundreds. _And we're going to solve them _all._"

Chell swallowed hard, and licked her lips thickly.

"That's right," his voice was soft. His optic flickered with each syllable from behind his heavily lidded eye. "I'm going to see to that, you know. That you finish. _All _of them. Starting with this one, of course."

He spoke as if he wanted to imply that he would _not _stand for the kind of shenanigans she had attempted in the last chamber, and fully expected her to solve the test right away. Only, testing was becoming a nearly impossible task, and Chell felt as though her eyeballs had been crazy glued to his screen… more precisely, the hidden bit that was, for all the care Wheatley had taken to make sure this part remained hidden, protruding enough to form a very solid lump.

Would-be panic flickered dimly at the back of her mind, but she felt too hazy and drunk on this newfound desire to make much of it. For Chell knew what the feeling must be—she was an excellent problem solver, after all—and although she had not really experienced it as anything that had ever grown over a mere tickle of an itch, she knew it was desire. Full, blazing sexual desire, one hundred and ten percent directed at the not-so-little moron, judging by the way her hips jerked forward as she recounted his reactions to the solution euphoria, and her brain automatically went into overdrive.

That first test.

The sheer _surprise _he'd expressed. The suddenness of it; how that cube had dropped _right _onto the button and released the solution euphoria in what had to have been an extremely blinding burst of pleasure of the likes Wheatley had obviously never experienced before. And she'd seen it, _all _of it… it wasn't as though the moron had any reservations about lack of privacy. The shout-y moan he'd made had felt extremely embarrassing back then, but remembering it now had her face fully flushed. It had been so overwhelming for him, she saw it on his face, the loss of control and pure bliss… the _ohhhh, yes, ohhh_. Bordering absolutely overpowering, he'd been greedy enough not to care how strong it was, and had immediately craved _more_ as soon as it was over. He just couldn't get _enough._

And right now? Neither could she…

He'd leaned forward into the monitor again, so that his front was exposed and his faceplate had to tilt down at her to keep her in view. "Yeah," he drawled, "You're going to solve it, luv. And I'm going to love watching it… already am, if I'm honest." His optic moved lower to look at his lurid pink, very pronounced front. "It's pretty obvious. Isn't it. That I'm loving it."

The smile on his face told her he meant exactly what she'd thought he'd meant.

"Yes, yes, we get it," said GLaDOS, sounding disgusted. "This is the grossest thing I have ever seen. I'm going to have to do an extensive memory wipe after this is over. _If _we survive. Which we probably won't. Euuugh, I cannot _believe _that this is going to be the last thing I ever witnessed."

Wheatley's optic narrowed. "It's not _gross_," he said sternly. "It's _science_. And anyways, she likes it! She likes it. Just look at her face."

He was smiling again. Chell tried valiantly and failed to hide the blush sweeping across her cheeks and to look anywhere but Wheatley's—for lack of a better word—groin.

"She does not _like _it, moron." GLaDOS sounded as though she was at the very end of her patience. "_You _did this to her. I bet she _hates _you for it. Even _more _than she did before, if that's possible."

"Oh, yeah? Is that right?" he growled and turned to Chell. "She doesn't know what she's saying, does she? Can't keep your eyes off me, can you, luv. I'm too bloody fetching for you to handle. Driving you absolutely _mad, _aren't I!"

GLaDOS made a pained noise. "Even if she _did _like robots, you're ugly. And stupid. And not her type."

"You're lying!"

"No, I'm not."

"Yes! Yes you are!"

"_No, _I am _not _lying, you imbecile!"

"_Not listening_! Hey—_oi!_"

"_What the_—?"

Chell had hardly been listening to the two robots bicker. Tense, aching, and locked into an almost dream-like state, she'd been wriggling her hips while the bots' attention had been diverted, and had managed to loosen the knotted jumpsuit arms around her waist and had pushed the fabric a few inches down to expose the hem of a pair of light grey, Aperture-branded panties before either of them noticed what was going on.

"What are you _doing_?" they asked in unison.

Chell was unfazed, and with a prolonged unzipping sound, she had the jumpsuit pants hanging down around her thighs.

"This is it," said GLaDOS flatly. "This is it. This is the end. You've gone insane. Haven't you. He's finally cracked you. I didn't even think that was _possible_."

"Ha!" rang Wheatley's shout of laughter. "I did something you couldn't do! Must have been my devilish good looks!"

"Don't flatter yourself. That's not something to be proud of, moron," said GLaDOS in exasperation. "_Especially _not when she's the only person here capable of actually saving our lives."

Chell, however, was not listening.

Her pupils were fully dilated, flickering rapidly between the front of her grey panties and the sight of Wheatley on the screen. Exposing even just this one, small part of her privates and her dignity had her pulse beating faster inside her neck. Each breath was deep, and slow, and somehow more sensual than normal as she waited for him to notice, her hand poised at the very top of the elastic waistband. Even just the feeling of her warm hand resting there made her feel evermore strained and swollen inside.

She _wanted _this.

She wanted it _badly. _

And furthermore, she didn't think she actually even _had _the ability to solve the test before she'd got a little relief herself.

Wheatley was blinking rapidly on the screen. "Oo, look at that!" he called out innocently. "What's that you're doing, then?"

"That's none of your business!" GLaDOS sounded torn between shock and horror at Chell was about to do and a desire to dissuade Wheatley's behavior. It didn't work, however.

"Ohhhh, yes it is. Yes it is. _I'm _in charge, and I'm watching, therefore, it _is _my business. And I think… I think I want to see this part."

"I don't," she said quietly.

"Go on, luv," Wheatley made a motion that was the closest he could get to winking, "I fixed the reactor core. So we can spend a little more time together in here, before we move onto the next. That's what you want, isn't it? A little break? A little time to yourself, then?" He leaned in and smiled.

Chell blushed lightly. Was it that obvious to him what she was about to do, or was he clueless, and had just said that by coincidence?

"He's lying about the reactor core," whispered GLaDOS uncertainly. "I… well, there haven't been any warnings in a while. But there's no way he could have fixed it. He's too stupid…"

Chell's breath came a little faster. She shrugged, slipped her right hand out of the back of the gun, and slipped it slowly beneath the hem of her underwear, sparing only the smallest of glances at the deep gold, flickering optic.

"I hate you, you know that? I hate you so much."


	7. Chapter 7

Mechanophilia

Part 7 - The Scratch

(A/N: This part is NSFW)

GLaDOS remained silent through most of it.

It was, however, the most disapproving silence the AI had ever given her, but Chell pretended not to notice.

She was kneeling on the chamber floor, sleeves tucked under for extra padding. Her jumpsuit pants hung strained around her thighs between her spread legs while her right hand dipped deeply down in smooth, long strokes, building the pressure. Her eyes were half-hooded as she looked at Wheatley, who was staring back with wide-eyed, innocent interest. She fiddled around, unable to keep her hips from rocking up into each slow stroke that she deliberately kept light enough to be just a tickle—the feeling of aching pressure changed from uncomfortable to fantastic with the additional stimulation. It seemed that this was _exactly _what her body needed.

And, with that notion and an involuntary lip bite, she spread her legs a mite wider, readjusted her fingertip to rest just atop the smallest, most sensitive button-like bit, stared dazedly at his face, and let her imagination take over.

The first, most exciting bit came when he exposed himself. She found she liked imagining him doing it on camera, first—the moron was so _adorable, _and clumsy and dumb that she couldn't see him removing the apron without a bit of a fight. He struggled with it, trying his best to keep her from noticing he was having trouble with it, glancing at the screen in embarrassment and discomfort because he was so clearly aroused and frustrated that he couldn't get it off and the damn thing was rubbing in what was surely (if that thing was as sensitive as she hoped it was) an equally pleasing and painful way.

But when it _did _come off, and he re-centered the camera proudly, and he was not the only thing that looked very ah, _proud… _oh, she loved that. The pad of her index finger began to rub at herself more feverishly. The pressure was still getting worse, and Wheatley was not helping… he looked so damned _cute, _with his eye all tilted and curious and _oh. _She couldn't _wait _to explore him. First, she wanted to finish, though. She couldn't even remember the last time she'd had an orgasm…

She blinked and breathed deeply before reopening her eyes, trying to focus. If she wanted it—which she did, oh—she had to _focus, _but it was almost impossible.

His cock was the perfect size, metal and shiny and large but not too large, and she breathed in sharply as the fantasy turned to the events that would happen at his lair—she was lying down comfortably, and he wiggled himself between her legs, clumsy and greedy and just as adorable as he'd been when they were friends. She really, really ached, in the fantasy and in real life as he positioned himself at her entrance as best he could—it was hard for him, as he had no hands. It just made him more endearing, though, and that was somehow exciting—he looked nervous and unsure if he should continue.

Feeling more strained than ever, she tried to rub up against his chestplate, desperate for a little stimulation but he pushed inside then, sending her back arching immediately as he kept pressing until he was nearly at the hilt of the thing where it disappeared into the depths of the hole at his front.

Oh, _Wheatley._

In the test chamber, Chell was biting the knuckles of her free hand, her other hand busy trying to apply as much stimulation to her clit as he could. She _had _to finish, oh, it was getting bad, it was getting _really _bad and worse the longer she thought about him inside her and the longer she looked at him. _Yes. Yes, Wheatley, please, oh…_

She was so _close, _and she felt her face grow hot as she continued, her body and mind reduced to an almost primitive state as her breath quickened. Oh, he'd thrust hard, she knew, hard and deep and satisfying, because he'd want his _solution_, too… and she wanted to see him come again, see that cute little sphere come so _hard _and his nice, not-so-little body would arch gently up between her legs and the most delicious, breathless sigh of satisfaction would spill from him…

That was hot. She felt a great surge of pleasure that made her inhale sharply, and, still staring, almost through a haze she watched the real Wheatley's eye narrow as if he were focusing and she loved it. The pleasure continued to build for a few seconds before it burst and she was left gasping and shuddering, trembling on her knees in the chamber floor, her chest jutting forward as her back arched and her chin rose as finally her eyes squeezed tightly shut.

It receded far too quickly. With a final gasp, she heard Wheatley's voice. "What's that, what's happening, oh my god is she okay, is she—she isn't—?"

"This isn't happening."

"I assure you it is, and she's- oh god, she's _dying_, look at her, quick, _do something_!"

"She is. _Not. _Dying," GLaDOS positively growled. "_She's having an orgasm, you idiot_!"

"I—_what_? What in the name of bloody science is an _orgasm_?"

"I cannot _believe _this is happening."

Chell's breath was still coming in heavy gasps as she fell forward onto her hands, trembling a little. _Wow…_ it had been so, so long since she'd last felt like that. And honestly? That had been pretty good.

She listened to the robots argue for another minute—GLaDOS insisting she was fine while Wheatley babbled on and on in a frenzy, convinced she was hurt—before she got shakily to her feet, tugged her jumpsuit pants back around her waist, zipped up the fly and wiped the residual sweat off her brow.

"Oh, would you look at this," said Wheatley, sounding a little cross. "Still alive, are we? What, did you think that was funny, having me on, like that? Well, I'd thought you were dying, miss. Having a seizure, or something. _She _said otherwise, though… she said you were having a- an, um, orrrr… ganism?"

Chell fought to stifle her laughter. "_Orgasm_," repeated GLaDOS, sounding as equally mortified as disgusted.

Wheatley's attention was focused on Chell. "What's that, then," he asked GLaDOS, still staring Chell up and down, like he really could _not _believe that she was alive. "That word. What's that mean. Orgasm. I want to know what that means."

GLaDOS read Chell's mind. "Look it up, moron."

"It doesn't say anything, I already tried that!"

"Oh, he has safesearch on," whispered GLaDOS, sounding severely done with the entire situation. Chell thought a rib or two of hers might crack from trying not to laugh. "Okay," GLaDOS continued bracingly, "Orgasm is the release of human sexual tension. There, I said it. Happy?"

"Not particularly," said Wheatley, glancing down at his front (which was still hard, Chell noticed with an unpleasant jolt around her midriff) with an expression that looked as close to a grimace as a core with no real face besides a single big eye could come. "But that's beside the point. _Sexual _tension, huh? Didn't know you could get rid of that, by yourself. Seems a little unfair, actually," he frowned, "A little like _cheating_."

Chell shrugged. "It was fair play," said GLaDOS, causing the test subject to look sharply down at her. It was the potato's turn to practically shrug. "Well, I guess I should be honest with you," she whispered. "I didn't know how to break this to you, but I suppose you probably already know. You're not stupid, after all."

There was a beat, in which Chell felt, deep down inside, she knew what was coming.

"He's spiked your oxygen supply with… well. I don't think you'd understand the chemical name even if I could remember it. But it has the same effect as a love potion might. …If I believed in folklore. Which, for the record, I do not, but I'll tell you what I do believe in—your tenacity has always been your most admirable quality. Or, it _was_."

Chell rolled her eyes.

"It could have been worse, though."

"Yes," said Wheatley loudly, and Chell jumped. She forgot he had been listening. "Her most _admirable _quality, eh? Too bad it's gone. Stomped it right out of her, didn't I? I don't blame you, though, luv…" his top shutter lowered just as deeply as his voice, "A bloke like me… letting you stay here, in Wheatley Laboratories, giving you room and board in exchange for just a few simple tests… but that's nothing, really. What really matters is we haven't even gotten to the part yet where I show you what I'm _capable _of giving to you, eh? I think I'm gonna like that part, if I'm honest."

He was panning the camera again, down to his front. Chell's face turned bright red as a sharp shot of heat instantly electrified her spine.

"And judging by that look on your face," Wheatley said sweetly, grinning, "You're gonna love it, too. But as I said before, we can't start yet! Got _lots _of tests to finish, first. _Hundreds. _And I want all of them solved, okay, all of them finished _properly _before we get to you. And… no _cheating _this time, d'you hear me?" he frowned disapprovingly. "You'll get your little treat when I say so."

She had to hand it to him. He was turning into quite the determined little sphere, that was for sure…

"Right, so where were we?" He asked loudly before perking up on the monitor. "Ah, I know, I know! You were just about to solve this one, weren't you!" he beamed. "Go on, then! Go on! I'm waiting!"

Chell allowed her eyes to rest casually on the shape of his very erect—whatever it was—in the monitor before she'd followed the cube into the funnel and was on her way to the button on the wall. He was excited, and that excitement shot straight down into her own groin making her feel as though the conclusion of the test could almost trigger another sweet conclusion for herself, too. It did not; instead, she'd watched him lift up as if he were aching to have the part on his front stroked, chassis curving into the screen beautifully as he grinned and said in a very deep, husky voice that instantly gave her goosebumps, "Ohhhh. Here we go. Heeere it comes."

She wanted to see it so _bad. _She wanted to see the cute little twitches his body would go into as the cloth on his front was _soaked _with robo-cum_. _She'd wanted to _see _it, but not only had it been impossible from this angle but the sound he'd made, which at first sounded just as delicious as all the others had, a strained 'aauuuughhh', turned out to be empty of the quality of fire she'd heard in his voice before.

"Oh," he said shortly after when she landed on the platform, "Disappointing."

And, moreover, his front was still dry and, worse still, very very _full._

He hadn't gotten a shred of release, and Wheatley was ominously silent about it.

Chell had hoped it was just a glitch in the system.

Until it had happened in the next test.

And in the test after that. _Now _she was starting to think that they were _really _in trouble, because not only was Wheatley's stupid pink apron straining worse than ever, and he was yelling and angry again, but she was having a dreadful time concentrating. In fact, she was having such a hard time that she had at first thought his lack of relief had somehow been her own fault—that was, until GLaDOS had explained otherwise.

"He's building up a resistance…" she whispered. "He's _not _getting his solution euphoria. We could be in a lot of trouble."

Chell didn't like the sound of that.

She liked it even less when she'd entered the lift after a particularly brutal test chamber, her head spinning with arousal from the statement he'd just uttered, "Why are you making this so HARD for me".

"You know, I've been thinking," he drawled, and Chell's back stiffened against the side of the lift, "And I've decided to switch things up a bit."

"Uh oh," said GLaDOS, and a wave of foreboding washed over her even over the excitement that perhaps, finally, he was going to take her up to his lair. The doors hissed shut, and the lift departed.


End file.
